Update on Sadie

I'm not sure where to begin. Maybe that I just spent 30 minutes submitting all of her medical bills to my pet insurance company. Or the fact that she has so many medicine and supplements that I had to buy her a weekly pill pack so I could keep it all straight. Or that she was doing so great recently and then suffered another major setback. 

Receiving Acupuncture

Let me start at the beginning. At my last update in mid August, we were seeing a neurologist and taking things slow to help her recovery. She had a follow up appointment and they basically recommended surgery for her again. After putting her through this when she was 14 months old and not having much success, not to mention the cost of that surgery and rehabilitation - I was not going to put her or us through that again. So they pretty much said well maybe she can do some treadmill walking and that may help. Gee thanks. Since I said no to surgery they pretty much wrote me off. So I spent hours pouring over medical research. What I read had real results was acupuncture. So I found a great DVM (vet doctor) who also did acupuncture in early October.

By this time, she had a host of issues. This doctor came in to my home, got on the floor with my dog and within the first 5 minutes diagnosed a urinary tract infection that I didn't even suspect she had. She put her hands all over Sadie and knew exactly what we were dealing with so from there she formulated a plan. She asked me what I wanted. I said I needed someone to partner with me to help her get better - to find solutions when I didn't want to put her through surgery and not abandon her care when I didn't choose a certain approach. Luckily, she agreed. Together, we weaned her off the dangerous steroids that the neurologist prescribed and put her on more natural supplements along with some pain meds that she needed. She had 30-45 minute sessions of electrical acupuncture every 10 days along with some adjustments and was doing great...feeling better...and making real progress.

However, last Tuesday she suffered a major setback. I had just taken her for a walk around the block (something we hadn't done in months but she was doing so well). I dropped her leash in the driveway to haul my garbage cans from the curb to my garage. That's when Sadie thought to herself, hey, I'm doing so great, I'm going to run the 50 yard dash up the mulch side of the driveway like I used to do when I was a bit more healthy - you know just for fun. Well, she didn't get more than 10 yards before she went down. I ran to help her up and she immediately started limping. Not even wanting to put pressure on her back right leg. To get her back inside, I had to haul her up to our house - thank God she was wearing a help me up harness. Her doctor/acupuncturist was just coming back from vacation and I wanted Sadie to see her and also wait and see if over the next few days she would start walking and not limping again. She didn't. Tom and I had to haul her in and out of the house just to go to the bathroom for a few days. Lots of fun for me considering she's 105 pounds! And she was terrified of going up and down the stairs because she wasn't sure of herself on the stairs.

Finally, my doctor came yesterday and diagnosed her with a partial tear in the ligament in her knee. Apparently when she fell, Sadie also did a number to her front shoulder too. She adjusted her, applied electrical acupuncture, gave her more natural meds for tendon/ligament healing as well as more pain meds and another anti-inflammatory to help her lameness. Now we wait and heal. Not sure how long. But I'm hoping for a better 2020 for my baby. She doesn't deserve this at just 3.5 years old.

Water therapy w/ peanut butter on glass to get her to walk

Side profile electrical acupuncture

Meds!

Girl Time

It's important to have some besties who are girls. Boys are great and all but as you get older I think it's important to have one or two best girl friends to add to your friendships.

Hailey has always preferred being friends with boys over girls so I was really excited for her to start elementary school this year and develop some real connections with girls she'll be going to school with for awhile. She played soccer this year and really enjoyed hanging out with her new friends. Two of which are in her kindergarten class. They just had an end of the season (dance) party at the local pizza place and she had a ball hanging out with all of her friends, talking and dancing.

Peyton, on the other hand, has always had a bunch of good girlfriends. Eager to have a moms and daughters night out like I do with some soccer moms and our sons, Peyton begged me to set up something with her friends. So last Friday night, we went to dinner and then the girls bowled and gossiped, ate ice cream and stayed up way too late. She had the best time though and was so happy and excited that she had this special event with her friends. I could almost get a glimpse of how she might be as a teenager!

Soccer Love!

Finally, both girls joined me and my bestie and her daughter (my goddaughter) for manicures/pedicures and lunch this past weekend too. The girls enjoyed getting their nails painted and their feet massaged. I think they could definitely get used to this. My girls love having their nails painted. Peyton told me that next time she should get the gel nail polish! I said she should get a job since it costs twice as much!

It was a nice few weeks of girl time activities that we snuck in before the holidays. And we know it's always important to make time for girl stuff!

Waiting for our moms to be done!

Three girls

Soccer scary dance party!

Besties!

Walking Pneumonia Again...

Champions in flag football before fever/cough

The last few weeks we've been dealing with a lot of sick kids in our house. As soon as Peyton got over walking pneumonia, we had about a week before Austen started developing the same symptoms. (I give Hailey til next week until she comes down with it.) It starts with a fever that you just can't shake and then it's coupled with this horrendous cough.

Even though I was pretty sure what Austen had by day 2, they wouldn't give him antibiotics for it until day 5 when they could definitively diagnose it by listening to his lungs with a stethoscope. If it's too early, the diagnosis is a cold virus but if you wait a few days eventually the virus will turn into bacterial virus that they can treat with medication. When listening to Austen's lung, the doctor said Austen was more right sided with the pneumonia whereas Peyton had it in both of her lungs. At this point, I was just glad it was in one lung so they could give us the medicine to clear this up, and they did and even after the first dose, he started to feel much better.

Ultimately, Austen missed less school than Peyton (four days for Austen compared with six days for Peyton). Since it was walking pneumonia, they both were still somewhat functional and with an important cheerleading competition and soccer game, they both still competed while sick. Peyton was the front and center stunt group while Austen's game was the last game of the season and he still really wanted to go and his team really needed to win. Somehow Austen played 85 minutes of soccer and scored a goal to help lift his team to a 2-1 victory. I don't know if that makes him tough and determined or makes me a bad mom but I think sometimes even when you are not 100% you have to push through it because your team (work or sports) needs you to do so. 

Anyway, Austen is on the mend and fingers crossed no one else catches it including me!

Sick but ready to play!

Halloween 🎃 2019

This Halloween will go down in history. The day before Halloween about 3 inches of snow fell and more continued to fall on Halloween just as the kids we’re getting ready to go trick or treating. In fact, the snow was blowing sideways as the kids left school and made their way home to go trick or treating. They were already in their costumes (Peyton was a werewolf and Hailey was Kion from the show Lion Guard) since they had a Halloween parade at school so we just added more layers!

Good thing our neighbor had a party beforehand. Both kids and adults weren’t as anxious to go out into the cold and start the candy collection so we started a bit later than usual and ended a bit earlier too. Peyton ran from house to house while Hailey lagged a little behind. They were tired and cold and only made it up and down our long block before melting down in the middle of our street over a king-sized candy bar that one of them said the other stole from her bag. Never mind that Austen was going to come home with 20 or more of those giant bars that they could have. Hence, why we retired at 6pm and my kids were sleeping by 6:45pm.

Well, not Austen. He trick or treated with his usual group and slept over at his friend’s house. We had no school on Friday as an extra bonus so that’s why it was extra fun to stay up late and sleepover. He had a great time again this year and we know it’s because his friend is a boy/girl twin and his sister always has her friends over! They don’t sleep there but they still all hang out together.

So despite the weather everyone still had a good Halloween. I mostly did because of Tom’s spiked apple cider and his roving bar in our little red wagon.